


Team Sports

by misbegotten



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, Kissing, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 06:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13541913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbegotten/pseuds/misbegotten
Summary: "In my observation of you, Eleanor, I have determined unequivocally that drunk comes with an attachment of horniness. Actually, your resting state seems to be mildly horny, but it spikes exponentially with every shot you consume. See, I have a graph."(In which Michael has a graph and Eleanor sobers up.)





	Team Sports

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during the episode "Best Self." Thanks to out_there for the beta. All errors are, of course, my own.

Eleanor is lying on her back, trying to look at the stars. She's not sure why there are stars since it's a fake sky, but she suspects it's because Michael likes to be thorough. "Hey bud," she says, thinking of Michael's architecting, "Nice work on the whole 'night' thing."

The rest of the gang have gone. Chidi, taking Michael's suggestion to rest up seriously, has retired to the clown house. Tahani's nightly beauty regimen is at least an hour of moisturizing. Jason and Janet have disappeared to... talk it out, or bang it out, or whatever a human can do with his non-robot sort of wife. It's just Michael and a slightly buzzed Eleanor left on the picnic blanket. 

Michael is sitting next to her, his long legs stretched out. He doesn't look entirely comfortable on the blanket -- he hasn't mastered the art of human lounging -- but it's endearing to see him try. "Thank you. You know, a lot of work went into every detail. Each star you see is handcrafted from the flame of a phoenix. Ironic, really, as you're actually from Phoenix."

"Seriously?" Eleanor asks. Unicorns are real here, after all. It's not totally out of the realm of possibility.

Michael blinks, a chuckle escaping him. He's a demon, Eleanor reminds herself. He can't help the fact that all his chuckles sound slightly menacing. "No. They're just light bulbs. Really, really powerful light bulbs."

"You got me," she says, nudging his hip with her elbow. "Good one."

The stars are dancing a little, which is either due to the truly heroic amount of alcohol she's consumed or Michael is lying to her about the light bulb thing. She doesn't think that Michael lies on purpose -- well, not now that he's an honorary human and all -- but she thinks he probably lies habitually, as kind of a default setting. It's a hard habit to break. Eleanor knows.

But after a few hundred hours of studying moral philosophy... They've both come a long way under Chidi's loving care.

She winces at that thought. Not quite loving, is it? Eleanor had fessed up to having a thing for Chidi, and despite the fact that she totally lied and said she was cool with him not reciprocating her feelings, well...

And now she's lost the thread of her mental ball of string.

"Are soul mates a real thing? In the Good Place, I mean?" She wants to take the words back as soon as she hears them. They're just hanging there while Michael crosses his legs.

"Eleanor, soul mates are d--"

"Wait!" she cries. She stuffs her fingers in her ears. "I don't want to know. Forget I asked. La la la la la la la!"

When she looks at Michael, his lips aren't moving. In fact, his mouth is closed and his expression is what she might best call fondness. 

Eleanor takes her fingers out of her ears and Michael reaches out to pat her shoulder. "You humans and your fragile feelings. I told you, the only two you really need--"

"--are anger and confusion," she finishes for him. "Yeah, I get that. I mean, I totally get that after everything that's happened today. But Michael, if you're going to be an honorary human you've got to accept that we're the whole package. Good comes with bad, love comes with hate--"

"Drunk comes with horny," Michael adds, nodding sagely.

"Right." Eleanor's mental brakes squeal. "Wait, what?"

Michael arches his eyebrows. "In my observation of you, Eleanor, I have determined unequivocally that drunk comes with an attachment of horniness. Actually, your resting state seems to be mildly horny, but it spikes exponentially with every shot you consume. See, I have a graph." Michael waves a finger, and sure enough there's a brightly colored graph depicting her ratio of drunkenness to "on the make."

"Thanks," she says weakly. "Very informative."

"In fact," Michael continues blithely, "I'm not sure why you aren't knocking on Tahani's door right now. Your alcohol level is such that you have got to be a mass of hot, wet frustration and she is the most viable candidate to reciprocate your advances."

"Okay," Eleanor snaps. "Hold on." She struggles up from the blanket, gathering the shreds of her wounded dignity. "Just because Chidi doesn't want to jump my bones doesn't mean I'm going to throw myself at the first available body."

Michael tilts his head, lips pursed thoughtfully. "I'm sorry," he says, after a moment. "I was trying to make a helpful suggestion. Maybe I misjudged how you'd prefer to spend your last night before we face certain failure tomorrow on our half-baked plan to stroll through the Bad Place, find a Judge willing to hear our case, and gamble our eternal afterlives on their verdict?"

"Wow," Eleanor says. "When you put it like that..." She gets to her knees, faces Michael, and reaches out with both hands to steady herself on his shoulders. Very broad shoulders, she notes. Michael is sort of a total hottie, for an older guy who isn't really a guy but rather a bunch of badness in a mild mannered guy suit.

Aw, what the fork.

She presses her lips to his.

He doesn't do anything. Not at first. Then he puts his hands on her shoulders and pushes her back gently.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Mashing our food holes together," Eleanor explains. "It's called kissing. And I thought you might like to try it once before we go to our certain doom." She smiles crookedly. "I thought you might enjoy it."

"No," Michael says. "You thought _you_ might enjoy it." He tilts his head. "Did you?"

"Well no, dummy. You didn't help."

"Oh," Michael says. "Let's try again." His hands, still on her shoulders, tighten and draw her into a crushing kiss. His lips are warm and a little dry against hers, but he remedies that by swiping his tongue across her teeth and then _damn_ Michael can kiss. She might moan, just a little, as he really puts his back into it.

"Woah," Eleanor says, coming up for air. "Where did that come from?"

Michael releases her, and Eleanor feels a little put out.

"I'm an eternal being who has spent much of his time studying you humans in all your complexity. Plus, this meat suit I'm wearing seems to have a facility for 'bringing it'."

"Um, okay." Eleanor won't deny the bringing it thing. If she wasn't a hot, wet mess before, she most certainly is now. "So, you want to try it again?"

"I don't think so," Michael says, and isn't that a kick in the ash. Turned down by two guys -- all right, one guy and one evil entity playing at being human -- in one day. This is a new low for Eleanor. Maybe she will go knocking on Tahani's door after all and--

"Not like this," Michael continues, and snaps his fingers.

Eleanor's eyes slam shut in anticipation of... something. "Michael, what did you do?"

He shrugs. "I removed the alcohol from your system. I thought it best to try the experiment without the added complexity of drunkenness."

Huh. He's right. She's stone sober now.

"So," Michael continues thoughtfully. "If you're still willing to try it again, we can do that."

Being a sober, hot, wet mess isn't all it's cracked up to be, Eleanor decides. "I don't know," she says as she considers it. "I mean, if you're just going to treat this as an experiment, that's a lot of pressure. I don't want to be graded, you know?"

"Oh, but Eleanor, that's the beauty of it!" Michael takes her hand, clasping it to his chest. "I've been observing humans since forever. Literally, forever! But you've turned out to be the best guide to learning exactly what it is that makes humans _human_ that I've ever known. If I was going to -- what do you call it? -- 'make out' with anyone, I would want it to be you."

Gee, that _is_ a little flattering. Eleanor shakes her head, cracking her neck muscles like a fighter going into the ring. If Michael wants to do this, she's going to be the best forking teacher ever. 

"All right," she says with determination. "Let's talk about getting to second base."


End file.
